


Resolve

by carrotcouple



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: And angsty, Gen, Kil-Sung is there for like, this is just feelsy, three lines?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 01:37:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17951153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrotcouple/pseuds/carrotcouple
Summary: Taejun has a long overdue conversation with his father and moves forward.





	Resolve

For months after Princess Yona and her group had left the Fire Tribe, Taejun’s dreams were of flower gardens, pavilions and guqin music. Sometimes he would hear his mother laugh, or his brother shout at him for doing something ridiculous, or even the steady but powerful voice of his father telling him about the people of the Fire Tribe. 

Picking up the pieces of what his father had left behind was hard and Taejun found himself seeing his father every corner that he turned or asking himself how his father would handle a certain situation. Taejun had easily learned, he had not the strength of will that his father had, he had not the leadership qualities that his brother had and he had not the patient endurance that his mother had. He was just one small man attempting to breathe back life into his tribe.

And then Taejun dreams became those of blood and the falling and tattered Fire Tribe flag. He could see his brother screaming and King Soowon standing before his father’s corpse. Taejun clutched his arms to himself, and prayed. He prayed for the heart to stand such nightmares. Sometimes, his brother drew a sword and rushed at the King. Sometimes Taejun would let him, sometimes Taejun would hold him back and sometimes Taejun would jump in front of the King and feel the blade sink into his chest and blood climb into his throat and then his brother would look at him desperately and whisper:

_ “Why?” _

It was impossible to not let his brother’s question nag him.

“ _ In the time that I haven’t seen you, have you forgotten about your own father? _ ”

Taejun wondered honestly if he had somehow failed to have the right reaction that a son losing his father would have. He had always been the odd one out in his family, the soft one, the stupid one, the child that couldn’t do anything right. 

“Taejun,”

His father stood before him, his robes impeccable, as if he had never been stabbed, had never gone to war. Taejun turned to face him, dressed in his coarse and muddy robes, his hands caked with dirt and sand under his fingernails.

Ah, Taejun hadn’t had a dream like this before.

“What are you doing?” his father asked him. Taejun looked down, surrounded by freshly tilled fields, his feet sinking into the soil. 

“I’m farming, father.” Taejun linked his fingers together, feeling nervous.

“Why?” His father frowned disapprovingly.

“To help those who are hungry. To help those who do not know how to provide for their families,” Taejun said excitedly. He was always eager to tell more people about his work, about what they could do to help as well.

“Where is your sword? Where are your proud fire emblemed robes?” His father hissed.

“A-ah! Don’t worry, they’re safe back at the headquarters building-” Taejun nodded furiously. He wouldn’t do something as stupid as to lose those!

“Why are you doing something shameful and stupid again? Isn’t it enough that you failed at seducing the Princess and that you dropped her off a cliff?” His father roared. Taejun flinched and stepped back. Taejun squeezed his hands together, trying to resist the urge to instantly agree to whatever his father was saying. He was conditioned to submit to his father’s angry voice at this point.

_ “I wonder if I can rely on you. Please protect the people of the Fire Tribe.” _

_ “To give a task such as that to someone like me is the highest honor!” _

“I’m not doing something shameful father! I’m h-helping these people! I’m helping the people that you failed to see!” Taejun’s nails dug into his skin as he raised his head to look at his father in the eyes. His father looked furious.

“What are you talking about?” His father was still shouting.

“You kept drafting soldiers and your people fell apart. You had no idea, father. So I am helping those that you couldn’t.” His entire being was trembling under his father’s terrifying gaze, but he stood his ground, as if his feet were sinking into the fields. 

“Doing this won’t help these weak and useless people! You have to make the government strong! While you could be making the Fire Tribe the strongest tribe, you’re rolling in the dirt with sick brats and old men!” His father stomped his foot against a budding plant and Taejun cried out in distress.

“Father! You’re stepping on a plant!” Taejun cried out. “The people need every plant! You can’t do that!” Taejun rushed forward and pushed his father out of the way. He bent down and tried to straighten out the plant. 

“What are you doing?!” His father snarled.

“I am doing what Princess Yona asked me to do!” Taejun turned and snapped back at his father, feeling angry. “Why won’t you listen to me! Just for once, listen to me! I want to help these people! Everyday your people are dying. I can’t be the one to look at what the future will bring! I can only do what I can now! Yesterday Jinyu gave birth to a healthy baby girl! But she has no money or food for her child! If I don’t do something now, her daughter will die in the span of four years! Father, have you seen a baby straight after birth? If so, how could you bear to abandon it to death? I will not abandon these people, father, even if I have to plow fields and carry the sick to doctors!” Taejun shouted. He huffed for breath as he finished. 

His father was glaring down at him quietly. But it wasn’t the same glare he gave him when he did something stupid. The look in his eyes was cold and strangely it looked like he had properly heard Taejun. Taejun turned back to the plant and tried to put a stick against it to hold it up.

“Did you say Princess Yona?” His father said quietly. Taejun turned around and got to his feet. He was just his father’s height, he realized. But because he hadn’t looked his father in the eyes for so long, he hadn’t noticed. 

Why hadn’t he looked his father in the eyes in so long? If he had, would things have been different?

“I did,” Taejun nodded.

“I see, so you have abandoned your father,” His father’s voice was like ice in his heart and Taejun’s eyes widened.

“No, no,” Taejun shook his head. “I would never abandon you, father! You are my father, the man I look up to the most!” Taejun reached out for his father’s hands. 

“Then pray, tell me, why would you listen to the words of spoilt and ignorant brat that only takes up space?” His father asked flatly. Taejun froze, his hands mere inches away from his father’s. Taejun drew his hands away and straightened up, suddenly feeling the calmest he had ever been in his father’s presence.

“Father, you may never understand, but Princess Yona is not what you think she is. To me, she is the only Queen that I will serve wholeheartedly,” Taejun said firmly, clenching his fists and refusing to back down. “She opened my eyes and helped me see everything that I had ignored. I will do anything to help her and I will help the Fire Tribe with my own strength. I am no longer that ignorant child.”

His father stared at him for a bit and then frowned. 

“I suppose anything I say to you means nothing?” his father, crossed his arms and Taejun smiled nervously.

“That is not true. You are my respected father and I have always sought to listen your words. I have always loved you and I always wanted to be like you. I chased after your back for so long. But father, you changed. You changed and left me, brother and mother behind.” Taejun’s smiled turned sad. “If you changed, father, then it is only expected that I am capable of changing as well. I...am my own person...I am not just your son...I am also Kan Taejun, the younger brother of the Fire Tribe General. I can make my own decisions and stand by them now.”

And before Taejun’s eyes, his father’s robes started to seep red and blood began to trickle from his mouth. Taejun’s eyes widened in horror and fear.

“Father-” Taejun started. His father held up his hand and stopped Taejun.

“You have changed, Taejun. You are correct. I don’t believe I ever raised you to follow the words of some child, but I suppose that is my own fault that I neglected your studies during your teenage years. I don’t care anymore what you do or what consequences befall your actions for the choices you have made are your own and have nothing to do with me, as you’ve made clear.” His father turned and started to walk away, blood dripping from his robes and onto the soil. He turned to look at Taejun one more time and small, blood filled, wry smile spread across his face. 

“You’ve become strong. You are no longer that child that cowered before me. You have to watch your own back from now on, for I have nothing to do with you.” 

Taejun watched him walk away and then his legs gave way and he fell to his knees, his chest heaving.

\------o------

“Taejun sama?” 

Taejun shot awake, gasping. Someone was outside of his door and calling for him. Taejun felt tears slip from eyes and into his hair as he choked on wet sobs and wheezed for breath. He turned and buried his face into his pillow. His pillow was made of low quality fabric and smelled of earth and lavender. The smell calmed him down.

“Taejun sama, it is late. Are you not coming to the clinic today?” It was Kilsung’s voice.

Taejun took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I am coming, give me some time.” Taejun pushed himself out of bed and dragged his hand down his face. He got up and quickly splashed his face with water from the basin and then redid the bun in his hair. Taejun clenched his fists and stood straight, squaring his shoulders.

“I’m going,” he said to his empty room.

_ Because I will not turn back, father. _

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever get over the wish that Taejun and Soojin could have talked one last time? NOPE. I am so weak for Taejun. And family dynamics. Put them both together and what do I have? Taejun feels. Ughhhh, I have so much I could say about Taejun and Soojin's relationship in general, but not enough space to talk about it. I love Taejun, *sobs*


End file.
